


The Spring Breaking (of Tables)

by notsowriterly



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: And I couldn't really figuire out how to fit her curse into it, Calypso has issues with her faith, Don't Judge Me, F/M, Jason is clueless, Percy and Annabeth are creepy, Piper is Bamf, The characters are pretty OOC, but i tried okay, leo swears, when they look at you, you better run
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:04:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsowriterly/pseuds/notsowriterly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts, and ends with a table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spring Breaking (of Tables)

_Baby be the class clown, and I can be the beauty queen in tears…_

“Hey, Mrs. Jackson! Looking good!” Leo called out. Sally smiled and gave him a wave, and he responded with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. “Careful, Leo, or I might just have to psyche my son on you.”

Leo internally shuddered. Every single time she said it, and every single time, the same internal reaction. He couldn’t help it. Percy and his girl friend were just damn scary. I swear, when they both got that look on their faces, you knew you had to run, and fast. Sometimes he kind of felt bad. Percy wasn’t really that bad, he knew the kid had a sense of humor, but he was also about a head taller than him, had the muscles of a swimmer, and could probably take him out by stepping on him. Curse Leo’s genes for making him a five foot five inch midget. Percy was easily six foot tall. And his girl friend was five seven. And could take out a grown man with a punch.

Leo, quite frankly, didn’t know how he avoided getting beat up the two years he’d lived on their floor.

But none the less, he put on a grin, and gave Mrs. Jackson the same answer he’d given the past two years, shrugging and grinning. “I don’t know. I think Jason can take him.”

If he was afraid of Percy, Lord knew how he put up with his best friend Jason. Jason was a basketball player, easily the most popular in their year, and he was the perfect image of a Californian dude, blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect tan. He was a walking poster of intimidation, the guy born just to take a pot shot at everyone’s ego. It was a miracle that the Mr. Perfect and Mr. Anything But were so close of friends. But to be honest, Leo was friends with Jason’s girlfriend friend, Piper, first.

Piper was a whole ‘nother story. Jason took the responsibility of being their class leader in stride, like he was born with it. Piper spent seventh, eighth, and half way through freshman year in detention with Leo, wearing cut up band t-shirts, enlisting Leo to use his horrendous hair styling skills to chop up her hair with Garfeild scissors, sticking up her middle finger at all the popular prisses that practically ruled the school. Jason was like that at first too. The first time he’d even talked to her, she told him to fuck off, threw her arm around Leo, and did a face heel turn, walking off to science class, early for the first time ever. But the difference was, she was blushing.

And then Jason came to Leo. Which was probably the most shocking moment in Leo’s entire existence. Leo played cupid, which, unfortunately, involved his pyro to kick up and him to accidentally set a heart sign on fire--It was all symbolism, he would later claim--but, despite the odds, they were together.

It was quite sickening, to be honest.

Leo snapped out of his reverie as Mrs. Jackson laughed and shut the door behind her, and Leo let his grin slid off his face as he headed down the stairs. The ‘rents were at it again.

Leo’s foster parents were text book stoners. The smoked, they argued, they drank until they passed out, Lord knows how they were sober enough to sign the papers for Leo’s adoption.

Oh wait, they weren’t.

To be honest, Leo didn’t even know why they adopted him. They barely had their lives together, and Leo had to work in a machine shop just to put enough food for him not to starve every month. That happened once in freshman year though. He had to live off of crackers and Mrs. Jackson’s food. He was so starved, he didn’t even flinch the slightest when Percy and his girlfriend Annabeth came over and litterally just watched him eat like a starved animal for a whole twenty minutes. Their parenting was absymal.

But at least Leo had a home.

Even if he usually never stayed in it so that he could escape the ‘rents arguing again.

Leo took a breath of the cold Manhattan air, tugging his threadbare jacket against him as he walked to his haven, the Auto Shop. The owner, Alec, was a friend of his, and taught him everything there was to know about mechanics. Not that Leo had much to learn. He’d been building practically since he’d been born.

He let out a sigh when he saw the familiar flickering sign, looking like a beacon of heaven compared to the dreary signs around it, but then paused when he heard a sound he wasn’t used to hearing around the shop.

Crying.

He furrowed his eyebrows, and peered around to the grimy side alley of the shop, his eyebrows raising to his hairline when he saw a small female figure hunched over in the middle of the alley.

Piper?

Yes, Piper. It was unmistakably her ratty combat boots and choppy hair. Leo’s heart suddenly felt the size of a walnut. What had happened? Piper wasn’t the type to get sad easily, and the fact that she did…

He called out to her just as she turned around and punched the wall.

“Pipes?” He jogged up to her and she ran into his arms, squeezing the life out of him and sniffling into his shoulder. “Hey…” He said softly, soothingly, “What’s wrong, Beauty Queen?”

She sniffled again, before mumbling into his shoulder, “That lying, sleazy, asshole of a bastard. He cheated on me.”

 

\------

 

Jason Grace cheated on Piper Mclean.

Leo was sure that the halls would be buzzing with this information within a week. It was kind of a blessing, though, that Jason picked Spring Break to become a douche. At least there was some kind of recovery time.

Like the three days it took, from Saturday to Monday, for Piper to finally get the courage to give Jason his house keys back.

Or, at least, make Leo go do it. She hadn’t gotten to the actual talking to Jason phase yet.

It was the weirdest thing. Leo was so used to Piper being the fuck everyone girl, to her being Jason’s other half, that to suddenly be taken out of third wheeling mode was disconcerting. He almost forgot that Piper didn’t just open up to everyone, that Jason was the first guy that wasn’t practically Piper’s brother (AKA Leo) that Piper softened around.

He’d forgotten that Piper McLean was actually pretty damn fragile.

Leo parked the car, leaving Piper in it, looking like she’d rather be in Hell than outside Jason’s huge ass mansion.

Piper and Jason were actually pretty rich, another way that Leo was the odd man out. Piper’s dad, he found out after forever, was a famous actor, though nobody actually knew it, and Jason’s dad was a huge business tycoon, and everybody knew it.

Jason had given Leo and Piper both keys to his house--sorry, _mansion_ ,--but the accidentally forgot to give keys to the gate, which caused the ongoing joke about Leo and Piper having to hop the fence to get over.

Leo felt a wave of sadness as he climbed the familiar stretch of brick fencing now, the one spot where Jason had confided in them that the electric fence didn’t work. What if he never got to climb this fence again? What if he never got to feel the familiar chinks in the brink, hear Piper’s breathless swearing, or look up and see the roof of the mansion, where he knew Jason would be waiting?

He tried to push the thought out of his head, swinging a leg over the top and hopping down over, just to crash into something wooden and _hard._

What the fuck?

He groaned as he look around him to see the wreckage of a sleek wooden table. Who the heck put this here? Jason knew that this was Leo and Piper’s landing spot. He got up shakily, examining the cuts on his arms and rolling his ankle to make sure it wasn’t sprained. Wait, no-- _ouch, fuck,_ his right ankle was _definitely_ sprained--

“What the heck did you do to my table? You _broke_ it!”

Leo looked up. He’d seen a lot of pretty girls, but damn, this girl was fine. She had long, cinnamon colored hair and milk chocolate doe eyes, along with a pair of Angelina Jolie worthy pouty lips.

But the way her button nose was turned up in the air and those eyes burned at him with distaste only reminded him of every pretty, popular girl he’d met at school. Mean, vapid, and shallow.

He disliked her instantly.

“Okay, Princess, I just sprained my ankle, have various cuts and bruises and not a cent to pay for medicare, but, by all means, let’s talk about your stupid fucking table!” She glared at him, and the look only infuriated Leo even further. “Who the fuck puts a table here in the first place?”

She looked like she wanted to punch him, but Leo was pretty damn sure this _princess_ wouldn’t want to risk a hangnail over someone like him, so he figuired he was safe. Besides, he dealt with Piper. This five foot four model didn’t have anything on his best friend.

“You little--” She scowled, no doubt ready to lauch a volley of prissy insults that Leo heard practically _every other day,_ when a voice interupted.

“Hey, Cal, what’s--Hey! Valdez, you should’ve told me you were coming over!” Jason looked normal, completely fine, as if his girlfriend wasn’t just crying over him a few days ago, as if he hadn’t cheated--Wait. Was this prissy princess the girl he cheated on Piper with?

Leo suddenly felt weary, the sadness he felt climbing over the fence hitting him full force at the sight of his ex-best friend. “Quit the crap, Grace. Piper told me everything. You know, if you were going to do that, I wish you at least had better taste than this pris over here, but I guess not.” Jason furrowed his eyebrows, opening his mouth, but Leo waved him off. “I don’t want to hear anything. I didn’t come here for a huge arguement or anything. Piper just wanted me to give you back her set of keys.” He tossed Jason the keys, and Jason started shaking his head, opening his mouth to speak, but the cinnamon haired girl cut him off.

“Wait, isn’t Piper…”

Leo didn’t want to hear that girl talk anymore than he had to. He limped over to the gate, pressing the button to open it, ignoring Jason’s calls behind him.

It was all over now.

 

\----

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

It was three days after that incident, and Jason had been calling nonstop, and trying to show up at Piper’s house, but since he was smart enough not to show up at Leo’s apartment and make things worse by trying to deal with the stoner parents, Piper and Leo were spending as much as time as they could over there, using the fire escape and holing themselves into Leo’s room. But after three whole days of dealing with the ‘rents more than he did in an entire week, Leo was starting to get a little impatient.

Piper had been brooding nonstop. Her hand kept going to her neck, where she usually kept Jason’s key on a chain, and every time she remembered it wasn’t there, her face would jerk into a stormy expression, and she would angrily start yanking at all the already ragged friendship bracelets around her wrists.

It was giving him OCD to see all the little stray threads she was yanking out.

Piper gave him a dark look, but then, after a moment, opened her mouth to speak. “I feel like an idiot. I should’ve expected this.”

That was _not_ what Leo expected to hear. If anything, seeing Jason’s knight-in-shining-armor, honor-is-everything complex, he would’ve expected Piper to say that she _didn’t_ expect this. He started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I mean, what was I even thinking? He’s one of the populars. He has girls waiting for him left and right, like that stupid white chick at his house, and all of them are these put together girls who look like they stepped off of a run way--”

“Yeah, but their personalities are complete _shit_ \--”

She ignored him. “--with Garfeild scissors, and I throw on whatever I find on the floor every morning like some kind of _guy_ , and--”

“Whoa, whoa! Beauty Queen, calm down.”

Piper pressed her lips together, clenching her hands into fists and looking away. After a moment of silence, he finally got the courage to ask, “Pipes? What, exactly, did Jason do to cheat on you?”

Piper threw him a furious look. “He and this girl were all over each other, and...You know what? I changed my mind. I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s just watch shitty anime and eat gummy worms in peace, alright?”

Leo’s suspicions were confirmed. Before Piper was with Jason, she pretty much dropped guys like they were flies. It was some kind of fear of commitment, as far as he could guess, something to do with Piper’s mom running away from her and her dad when she was kid. Jason was the first guy Piper stayed with for more than a month. He was surprised to see they lasted for an entire year. Maybe Piper was the one getting cold feet, not the other way around.

After Piper fell asleep on his bed, practically dead to the world in the way that Piper gets when she falls asleep, Leo snuck out onto the fire escape, dialing the familiar number on his phone.

Jason picked up on the first ring.

“Leo? Dude, I swear I have honestly no idea what’s going on, and I’m freaking out, what were you even talking about last time? I--”

“Whoa, whoa, there, Superman. Calm the fuck out. I know. I figured that out, like, three hours ago. I heard that you cheated on Piper--”

“What?!”

“Shut up and let me finish. I heard that you cheated on Piper, but I have a feeling I know what’s really going on. Meet me at my house? Tomorrow at eight? The ‘rents are going out to some kind of party or whatever, they shouldn’t be back till nine the next day at least. Let’s hash this thing out.”

There was pause. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

\----

 

Piper and Leo had just finished the Chinese takeout when the doorbell rang. Leo checked the clock. Exactly eight. Damn, Jason was punctual. Piper took in the look on Leo’s face and frowned.

“Expecting someone?”

“Yeah, lemme just go get that…” Leo went to the door and Piper frowned in confusion. What was going on? Leo seemed antsy all day. Surely he hadn’t been stupid enough to call...The familiar head of blonde hair confirmed her suspicions, and she felt her blood boil.

“ _Leo Aiden Valdez_ , you are dead.” Leo turned around just as she lunged at him, both of them tumbling into a mess on the ground. “You idiotic son of a bitch! I can’t believe you’re so fucking--Ouch! Asshole!” She was ready to kill him. She was going to kill him. At least, she was, until a pair of familiar strong arms pulled her back. She froze.

For a second, it was all okay. Everything was okay. She was in Jason’s arms again, and it was just another stupid tussle on the ground, and Jason would laugh, pressing a kiss against her neck and murmuring at her to “calm down, Pipes, seriously,” and she could just sink against him, feeling all the hard, comforting planes of him…

“Piper, leave him alone. He’s right. We need to talk.” All the fire in Piper’s veins turned to ice.

She almost forgot why she was fighting. Because she was scared, god dammit, and she didn’t want to see that look in his eyes as he told her pathetic excuses, or petty lies just like every other guy out there, or worse, his anger if she turned out to be wrong, the hurt that she didn’t trust him, the knowledge that he was walking away and it was _all of her fault._

She jerked away from him, and shot one last glare at Leo as Jason led her into the bedroom, letting him know the fifty different ways she was gutting him in her mind. Leo just shrugged, and she turned around, slamming the door behind them.

 

\----

 

Piper turned around slowly once she shut locked the door, trying not to let her hands shake. She didn’t want to do this. She was fighting the urge to run, to make a dash to the fire escape, but it seemed Jason knew what she was thinking, because he was sitting on the edge of the window, right in front of the fire escape, pinning her with an unreadable stare. She crossed her arms, curling her hands into fists.

“You said you needed to talk, right? So, talk.” _Just talk, just do it fast, break my heart and leave, because I want you not to, way too much, and I shouldn’t. Just, please. Leave._  

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Actually I said we needed to talk.”

He was wearing that one jersey she stole off of him for a solid month, the one she wore that one night under the stars, just her in her underwear and that jersey, nothing else, with him just in his boxers, not making out or anything, really, just curled up on the roof, whispering things she never told anyone. She felt a harsh pang in her chest. She bit her lip as he fiddled with a rip in his jeans, feeling the ache intensify. He hated her, she was wrong, she knew it. She wanted to cry all over again.

But she didn’t.

Finally, she couldn’t help herself. “Say something.”

He looked up, studying her, and she struggled to keep her face blank. “You’re an idiot.” He murmured, and she let out a short laugh, bordering on the edge of hysterical.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He shook his head softly, getting off of his perch and walking over to her, until she could feel the delicious heat of him, radiating through his clothes. She stilled. Everything, her breath, her nerves, her heart, just stilled, waiting for him. He reached up, almost hesitantly, and sunk his fingers into her hair, and, against her will, her eyes fluttered closed, her breath coming out in a sigh. He was making this so difficult. But she didn’t want him to move. He let out a breath, and she felt the familiar pressure of his lips on her forehead, the bridge of her nose, the tip of her nose, the corner of each eye, brushing along her cheek bones, and then she curled her fingers in his hair, drawing his mouth to hers.

It was a delicious pain.

It started off hesitant, delicate, but then his tongue slid across the seam of her lips, and she was pulling him closer, because, god, he was so much sweeter than air. Their lips crashed together and she let out a trembling gasp as he bit her lip, before returning the favor, whirling around to press him against the door, shoving her hands up his shirt to gain a bit of leverage as his lips started to devour her. They were moaning into each other's mouth, arguing, fighting without words, pressing each other closer and closer, because they needed each other, god, they needed each other more than they needed anything else at the moment, needed the familiar press of their bodies against each other and the promise of their lips and fingertips against each others own.

Then, abruptly, Jason pulled back.

His hair was messed up and his lips were red, and he looked so, so beautiful at the moment that Piper couldn’t breathe. He traced a tear across Piper’s cheek that accidentally fell, his breath coming ragged.

“Did you honestly believe that I cheated?” He asked.

She should say yes. She should say yes and push him away, tell him to fuck off, be _Piper_ , for god’s sake, Piper, the girl who didn’t take flack from anyone, didn’t depend on anyone, didn’t need anyone.

“You should,” she mumbled, sliding down to the floor, and Jason looked down at her incredulously.

“What?”

“It would make things easier.” Piper continued, but she wasn’t really talking to him anymore. “I wouldn’t have to wait for it.”

“Wait for what?” Jason asked, folding onto the floor beside her.

“For you to leave. Maybe if you left now, it won’t hurt as much. It’ll hurt worse, when it gets to a point where I can’t have you leave me and be whole again.”

Jason wrapped an arm around her, and she melted into him. “Piper, I’m not just your boyfriend. I’m your best friend as well, just as much as Leo is. And I’m not going to leave. Not unless you want me to.”

Piper sighed against his chest. “I don’t want to be another burden. Everytime I meet your dad, it’s always in comprimising positions. I swear every other sentence. I eat like a pig. I talk to much, and I’m completely tactless, and--”

“I love you.”

Every muscle in her body locked. She could barely move. “What?”

“I love you,” Jason said simply, as if her world didn’t tilt on its axis. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I figuired you were a more ‘show it in actions, not words’ type of girl, and you wouldn’t need me to. But incase you need a bit more clarification: my dad loves you, because you give us something to laugh about, I find it mouth wateringly sexy whenever you swear, I like a girl who eats like a pig because I don’t feel as self concious doing the same, talking too much just gives me an excuse to kiss you to shut you up, and as for your tactlessness? I’ll deal with it. We both have flaws. We can only just love eachother to deal with them.”

“Oh.” Piper felt a completely un-Piper-like grin come to her face, pulling away from him to look him in the eye.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh? That’s it? You aren’t going to say anything back to me?”

Piper grinned, pulling him down to her. “Oh, I just figuired you were a ‘show it in actions, not words’ type of guy.”

He smiled against her lips, but only for a second, because after that, his lips were far too busy doing something else.

 

 


End file.
